Legacy is All About Leovold

For those of you who have been living under a rock for the last six months, I can tell you that the “best” deck in Legacy is a four-colored control deck in which you can play any non-white card. The deck plays a lot of powerful cards, and its’ goal is to prolong the game so the superior card quality can take over – kind of like how “Jund” was looked at in Modern a few years back. Today I’m going to analyze what having 4 Color Control at the top of the metagame percentages means for the format.

Why is 4 Color Control a popular choice?

First things first. This deck’s game plan appeals to a lot of good players because they get to play a long game of Magic and gain small advantages here and there which ultimately gives you a higher chance of winning the game. When taking a look at the following list, which is not only a list of awesome Magic, but also the core of 4 Color Leovold, you suddenly understand why players want to play this deck.

Metagame reactions caused by 4 Color Control

The dreaded Black/Red Reanimator that was all the rage to start the year has slowly disappeared from the format thanks to too many decks starting off the game with Deathrite Shaman. I guess 4 Color Control can only take the blame partially for this one.

My team mate and Death & Taxes specialist Michael Bonde said on Skype the other day that Kolaghan’s Command has pushed his favorite deck all the way to the edge of playability and that every time he beats 4 Color Control, he feels like the luckiest man on the planet.

People tried their hardest to come up with a playable Blood Moon deck to fight the heavy amount of nonbasic lands in the format. Maybe this Chandra deck is the answer?

The only answer for this card out of 4 Color Control is usually Force of Will and possibly a singleton Abrupt Decay, which is good news. Having Sylvan Library in play will generate a ton of card advantage because you don’t really care about your life total when playing against 4 Color Control. Most of their cards create card advantage, and now you can fight on even terms instead of bringing a knife to a gunfight. This card’s stock is way up these days.

Green/Black Turbo Depths, which only route to victory is the 20/20 indestructive Marit Lage token, is a natural predator of 4 Color Control due to the lack of exile-based removal. In a world of Wasteland and Terminus, this deck was hardly a factor.

Some Delver pilots switched to a more burn-heavy version playing only Blue and Red to punish the mana base of 4 Color Control with Price of Progress.

Lately I’ve been playing against a few Eldrazi decks, but I don’t have enough data to call it a metagame reaction. One thing is for sure: if that deck is climbing to 5% of the metagame, I will have to re-evaluate my removal suite to combat Reality Smasher better.

My Version of 4 Color Control – October 2017

Recently I played the deck to a top 4 finish at the weekly Legacy Challenge on Magic Online, and here is my list. Allow me to talk about a few interesting card choices.

This is fairly controversial, and those who follow my stream will know how I feel about this. Ponder is better in a deck where you are looking for specific cards and in decks where you play a low number of lands. However, in a deck with 20 or more lands like this one, I’m mostly looking to keep the engine running not looking for anything specific most of the time. The trade off is that you avoid the awkward situations where Ponder reveals one card you want and two cards you don’t want which leads to shuffling a lot of the time unless you have an uncracked fetch land at the ready. With Preordain you lose some potential upside, but you’re getting a much more consistent cantrip for your control deck. Needless to say, I suggest at least giving Preordain a try in this archetype.

I recently added a second copy of this effect, and it performed right from the start. Aside from the obvious function of dealing with Blood Moon, hasty creatures and a lethal Price of Progress, this little gem works wonders in the mirror match. In games two and three, Pyroblast play a huge role and looping Kolaghan’s Command with Snapcaster Mage is a great way to win a close game. Furthermore, you can counter opposing Sneak Attack or Burning Wish at a cheap cost.

Another great tool to fight the inevitable mirror match when entering a Legacytournament. She can buy back your creatures that your opponent already spent resources killing, and she can ping Baleful Strix and Snapcaster Mage while ticking up. Not a lot of cards are worth using to deal with resolved Strixes and Snapcasters, but this Liliana qualifies. Making your life easier vs. Elves and Death & Taxes is just gravy.

Chandra has made her way into Legacy because she’s a house in the mirror. She dodges Pyroblast and can be very tough to deal with for the opponent unless they have a huge board presence or two burn spells in hand – something that is very hard to accomplish in the mirror match where you have basically the same cards. Deathrites getting killed, Hymn to Tourach both directions, Leovold or Jace, the Mind Sculptor being countered by Pyroblast is how a lot of games go. In these situations, Chandra will be a huge draw thanks to her ability to draw extra cards and deal with a single creature at the time. Maybe it’s off topic, but I won a game vs. Blood Moon thanks to her.

The rest of the list speaks for itself, but please feel free to ask if I missed something interesting.

I hope you guys enjoyed reading about my thought on 4 Color Control. If you have anything to add or think I’m telling lies, let me know in the comments and let’s have a great discussion!

In the coming weeks I will be publishing two or three articles about “Beating Legacy“, so make sure you don’t miss those.

With national titles in Legacy and Vintage, multiple Grand Prix money finishes in Modern and a newly found affinity for 1v1 Commander and Pauper, Andreas has an opinion about every constructed format except Standard.